Posts by Jill Filipovic

Jill Filipovic is a New York-based freelance writer and a law student at NYU. More of her writing is available online at her blog, Feministe.

Shocking: "Keep Your Legs Crossed, Sluts" Sex-Ed Strategy Fails
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 30, 2008 at 8:41 AM.

Shockingly, the "Keep your legs crossed, sluts!" sex-ed strategy is an epic failure.

Teenagers who pledge to remain virgins until marriage are just as likely to have premarital sex as those who do not promise abstinence and are significantly less likely to use condoms and other forms of birth control when they do, according to a study released today.

The new analysis of data from a large federal survey found that more than half of youths became sexually active before marriage regardless of whether they had taken a "virginity pledge," but that the percentage who took precautions against pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases was 10 points lower for pledgers than for non-pledgers.

I suppose abstinence-only education has one thing going for it: It threatens that sex will bring disease and unwanted pregnancy, and for abstinence-pledgers, that threat is more likely to be realized.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Horrific: 12-Year Old Girl Beaten By Police for 'Resisting Arrest'
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on December 21, 2008 at 11:36 AM.

This is horrific.

It was a little before 8 at night when the breaker went out at Emily Milburn's home in Galveston. She was busy preparing her children for school the next day, so she asked her 12-year-old daughter, Dymond, to pop outside and turn the switch back on.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, "You're a prostitute. You're coming with me."

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy." One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Is Pop Culture Finally Admitting That Women Like to Touch Themselves?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 28, 2008 at 6:48 AM.

Maybe I’m imagining things, but has anyone else noticed more allusions to female masturbation on TV? On Gossip Girl a couple of weeks ago, the show started with Blair having a sex dream and Dorota (her housekeeper) warning her that “God is always watching” -- and Blair telling her to go away, ostensibly so Blair can finish her business. Last week on Grey’s Anatomy -- a show which is legitimately terrible at this point -- Izzy (spoiler alert!) is having loud sex with her ghost-boyfriend and her room mates (including her real-boyfriend Alex) hear her. Everyone’s confused, and Alex says something like, “She’s flying solo. It’s hot.”

I’m only 25, but growing up I never heard about women masturbating -- and I certainly never saw it referenced on TV. Male masturbation, on the other hand, was an assumption -- something all men supposedly did, that they could joke and talk about. Female masturbation was gross and weird, something we all denied doing, if we talked about it at all. So I’m glad to see it presented as normal.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Anti-Choice Advocates Oppose Measures That Actually Decrease the Abortion Rate?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 18, 2008 at 2:02 PM.

Some individual pro-lifers have finally gotten on board with proven, long-standing pro-choice tactics to decrease the abortion rate, and anti-choice leaders are not happy.

Frustrated by the failure to overturn Roe v. Wade, a growing number of antiabortion pastors, conservative academics and activists are setting aside efforts to outlaw abortion and instead are focusing on building social programs and developing other assistance for pregnant women to reduce the number of abortions.

Some of the activists are actually working with abortion rights advocates to push for legislation in Congress that would provide pregnant women with health care, child care and money for education — services that could encourage them to continue their pregnancies.

That makes sense. According to National Right to Life, 23 percent of women terminate pregnancies primarily because they can’t afford a baby. An addition 19 percent terminate because they have other children/family responsibilities. In a Guttmacher study (pdf), 73 percent of women listed “can’t afford a baby right now” as one of their reasons for having an abortion (the wide difference between the numbers comes because the Guttmacher study allowed women select multiple reasons for why they were terminating; the study quoted on the National Right to Life site had women pick one reason). The highest abortion rates occur in countries where birth control access is highly limited; worldwide, socioeconomic reasons are a leading factor in women choosing abortion. Low rates of abortion strongly correlate with universal health care, widely available contraception, and gender egalitarianism. There is little correlation between the legal status of abortion and the incidence of abortion — that is, there’s no evidence that countries where abortion is illegal have lower abortion rates than countries where it is legal. Case in point:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Best Source of Patriotism Since Fox News: Joe the Website
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on November 14, 2008 at 5:07 AM.

Joe the Plumber has a website. And for only $14.95, you can get a special “Freedom” membership.

He’s also coming out with a book on American values ... like lying, practicing without a license, and being racist.

Conservatives' Offensive Attacks on Colin Powell, Progressives
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on October 22, 2008 at 2:47 AM.

Conservatives like Pat Buchanan not only accuse Colin Powell of supporting Obama because of race, but do so in an article titled “Tribal Politics.”

Buchanan also says that Powell “owes his fame and career” to the Republican party, and that his endorsement of Obama “smack of ingratitude, opportunism, and even vindictiveness.” The implication, of course, is that Powell should have been grateful that the Republicans let the likes of him through the door. He didn’t become an accomplished general by pulling himself up by his own bootstraps and working hard like everyone else; no, he was the GOP’s affirmative action candidate.

If Buchanan irks you and you want a good laugh, check out Ben Shapiro’s You Might Be An Elitist If column. Apparently in his years at UCLA and Harvard Law and in his short time practicing as an associate in LA (a totally-not-elitist city where he gets paid the totally-not-elitist salary of at least $160,000), totally-not-elitist Ben has learned that the term “elitist” simply means “someone I don’t like.” Here are some of the things Ben believes reflect elitist values:

You're an elitist if you think the government should manage the health care system even though it can't manage to keep the tax code within a 10,000 page limit.

You're an elitist if you think transgenders ought to have their own bathrooms for privacy reasons, but public distribution of pornography is fine.

You're an elitist if you think that pro-life folks are fascists unmotivated by true sympathy for the unborn.

…right. I hope his law school finals were this intellectually compelling — perhaps he just wrote the words “Roe v. Wade” followed by a bunch of frowny-faces. It makes me think that Ben got into Harvard Elle Woods-style (or, more likely, Aleksey Vayner-style).

So allow me to help.

Dear Ben:

Here.

Love,

Jill.

p.s. I ate an organic arugala salad tonight and it was delicious.

Woman Convulses and Dies, Ignored, in Waiting Room of New York City Hospital
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on July 3, 2008 at 1:39 PM.

If this story doesn’t disgust you, I don’t know what will:

It was a nightmare captured on surveillance video. A woman who had waited nearly 24 hours to be seen in a Brooklyn public hospital collapsed, fell face-down on the floor, convulsed and for nearly an hour — while several hospital staff members looked at her and one staff member even prodded her with her foot — received no aid. At some point during that time, she died.

The New York Civil Liberties Union has been sounding the alarm about New York City hospitals for some time now, calling the emergency room and inpatient units at Kings County Hospital “a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger.” It’s disgusting that someone had to die before the city bothered doing anything about it.

And this is just the one that we know about because the video was released on YouTube. The callous disregard that the hospital employees showed to Esmin Green is not possibly a one-time occurrence. Ms. Green was a poor, mentally ill woman of color. She apparently didn’t matter one bit to the employees at the hospital who were supposed to be giving her care. I would bet everything I own that she is not the first “unimportant” patient to receive that kind of treatment — she is just the first to have her death broadcast on YouTube, and so she is the first that the city cannot turn a blind eye towards.

And via Panopticon in the comments:

A state agency, the New York State Mental Hygiene Legal Service, filed a lawsuit a year ago, calling the psychiatric center “a chamber of filth, decay, indifference and danger.”

Patients, the suit said, “are subjected to overcrowded and squalid conditions often accompanied by physical abuse and unnecessary and punitive injections of mind-altering drugs.”

“From the moment a person steps through the doors,” it added, “she is stripped of her freedom and dignity and literally forced to fight for the essentials of life.”

The suit was especially critical of the hospital’s emergency ward, saying it is so poorly staffed that patients are often marooned there for days while they wait to be evaluated.

Sometimes, the unit runs out of chairs, according to the lawsuit, forcing people to wait on foam mats or on the waiting room floor. The suit also claims that bathrooms are filthy and filled with flies, and that patients who complain too loudly are sometimes handcuffed, beaten or injected with psychotropic drugs.

In case this doesn’t make it clear, mental health (and health care in general) is a feminist issue. This should appall and enrage all of us.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Craziest Smear Ever: Obama Worships His Monkey God Keychain
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 30, 2008 at 6:00 AM.

So we’ve all heard the rumors: Obama is a Muslim. Obama isn’t American. Obama hearts terrorists (and gives terrorist fist-jabs). Obama is too black. Obama is not black enough. Obama is a thug. Michelle Obama is Barack Obama’s baby-mama. Obama wants to give up all of our rights to the Muslims, and probably the French, too. Obama is every right-wing scare tactic ever:

“I think Obama would be a disaster, and there’s a lot of reasons,” said Pollard, explaining the rumors he had heard about the candidate from friends he goes camping with. “I understand he’s from Africa, and that the first thing he’s going to do if he gets into office is bring his family over here, illegally. He’s got that racist [pastor] who practically raised him, and then there’s the Muslim thing. He’s just not presidential material, if you ask me.”

But… for serious?

Yes, for those of you foolish enough to click over, that headline does in fact read, “Is Obama devotee of monkey-god idol?”

And I know it’s on WorldNet Daily, which is where the most paranoid and hateful wingers tend to congregate. it’s the same site that sells a “Darwin led to Hitler” video — in other words, not exactly the most reliable source of news and information.

But it’s nonetheless a widely-read site, and their take on the story isn’t unusual (just check The Google to see what the other right-wing sites are reporting).

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Fewer Albanians Are Becoming Sworn Virgins
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 25, 2008 at 9:48 AM.

There’s an interesting article about in the Times about the decline of Albanian sworn virgins. Sworn virgins are people who were born as women but take an oath of virginity and live as men. The article theorizes that they’re declining because of increased gender equality; it’s no longer shameful to have a woman-headed household, and the lines between “man” and “woman” are not as rigid as they used to be — meaning that women can do things that were traditionally in the male sphere while still living as women. It’s an interesting look at both the fluidity and rigidness of gender —while it’s possible for people born as women to “cross over” and live as men (and be totally socially accepted and understood as men), the only way they can do that is to fully embrace traditional gender roles. Further, only women can cross over — there aren’t men who can acceptably choose to live as women.

It’s an interesting piece. Thoughts?

[Ed: Watch an interview with an Albanian sworn virgin from a documentary by Elvira Dones. More information on the sworn virgin tradition is available here.]

Do Jerks Get Laid More?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 24, 2008 at 8:00 AM.

Apparently.

Two hundred college students took personality tests and were also asked about their number of sexual partners. Only the young men showed a direct correlation between ‘dark’ traits,’ like narcissism, and notches on the bed post.

Another study of 35,000 people across 57 countries found a similar correlation ‘between the dark triad and reproductive success in men.’ This data says little about whether these guys are also capable of long-term, lasting relationships, though; it simply what bad boy behaviors will allegedly woo someone into bed.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Conservative Pundit Dennis Prager Fears the Whippersnapper Vote
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 18, 2008 at 2:00 AM.

Shorter Dennis Prager: “Get offa my lawn!"

Most adults throughout history have recognized that young people are likely to be unwise given their minuscule amount of life experience. After all, most adults, even among baby boomers, believe that they themselves are wiser today than 10 years ago, let alone than when they were 20 years old. It is remarkable, then, how often adults romanticize youth involvement in politics — “Isn’t it heartwarming to see young people getting involved?”

Actually, for a wise adult, it is not heartwarming.

And by “wise adult,” he means Republican. Of course, the best part is that he starts his column like this:

We regularly hear about Barack Obama’s appeal to youth, about how he has been able to excite and mobilize a generation of young people to become politically involved, his rare ability to excite young people, and about how many new voters will register (and vote Democrat) as a result.

All this seems to be true. The question, however, is whether it is a good thing for the country and not just for Barack Obama and the Democratic Party.

The answer is that it probably is not. With a few exceptions — and those exceptions are usually those rare cases when young people confront dictatorships — when youth get involved in politics in large numbers, it is not a good thing.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Women unite behind Democratic nominee
Posted by Jill Filipovic on June 16, 2008 at 1:48 AM.

Thank you, Frank Rich.

I started reading the column with apprehension, convinced that Rich was going to buy into the narrative that angry white women who had supported Clinton are now turning to McCain in droves. Instead, we get this:

Now, there’s no question that men played a big role in Mrs. Clinton’s narrow loss, starting with Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Mark Penn. And the evidence of misogyny in the press and elsewhere is irrefutable, even if it was not the determinative factor in the race. But the notion that all female Clinton supporters became “angry white women” once their candidate lost — to the hysterical extreme where even lifelong Democrats would desert their own party en masse — is itself a sexist stereotype. That’s why some of the same talking heads and Republican operatives who gleefully insulted Mrs. Clinton are now peddling this fable on such flimsy anecdotal evidence.

The fictional scenario of mobs of crazed women defecting to Mr. McCain is just one subplot of the master narrative that has consumed our politics for months. The larger plot has it that the Democratic Party is hopelessly divided, and that only a ticket containing Mrs. Clinton in either slot could retain the loyalty of white male bowlers and other constituencies who tended to prefer her to Mr. Obama in the primaries.

This is reality turned upside down. It’s the Democrats who are largely united and the Republicans who are at one another’s throats.

Women are supporting Obama in huge numbers — they support Obama over McCain by 13-19 points. It’s only white suburban women — a small slice of the female population — who are leaning toward McCain (and only by 6 points). But that’s what the news media is focused on, despite the fact that Obama has a 7-point lead among white women, and a lead twice that when you count all women.

[Read the rest at Feministe.]

Same-Sex Marriages Are More Egalitarian
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 10, 2008 at 2:26 PM.

Socialized gender differences are bad for marriage:

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

But there is hope — it just requires dropping gender-essentialist ideas:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Has Feminism Lost Its Focus?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 9, 2008 at 9:32 AM.

That’s what Linda Hirshman argues in the Washington Post. And, not surprisingly, I think she’s wrong.

FYI: There will be a live discussion about the article here at 1pm today. Join in.

Full disclosure: Linda interviewed me for this article. I’m quoted in the second-to-last paragraph. I really enjoyed speaking with her — it was clear during the interview that we have very different visions of what feminism should be, and we pushed back against each other quite a bit, but it was an engaging conversation. I didn’t expect to convince her or anything, nor her I — and from the article, I feel like we’re speaking different feminist languages.

Linda seems to be arguing that feminism has lost focus by way of intersectionality — because we’re so busy looking at things like race and class, we’ve forgotten about women. Race and class are “divides” that fragment the movement, making us less able to, say, get a woman elected president:

So what keeps the movement from realizing its demographic potential? First, it’s divided along lines so old that they feel like geological faults. Long before this campaign highlighted the divides of race, class and age, feminism was divided by race, class and age. As early as 1973, some black feminists formed a National Black Feminist Organization; in 1984, the writer Alice Walker coined the term “womanism” to distinguish black women’s liberation from feminism, the white version. In the early 1970s, writer and activist Barbara Ehrenreich argued on behalf of “socialist feminism,” saying that the women’s movement couldn’t succeed unless it attacked capitalism. The movement was barely out of its teens when Walker’s daughter, Rebecca, announced a new wave to distinguish her generation’s feminism from the already divided feminisms of the people who had spawned it.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Anti-Abortion Groups Shut Down Habitat for Humanity Project
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 6, 2008 at 1:00 PM.

I know we’ve said it over and over: “Pro-lifers” don’t seem to care much for “life” once people actually enter the world. They oppose contraception access, which could prevent millions of abortions; their political allies take no steps to assist low-income women; they oppose universal health-care; and they generally stand against any social program that would actually help women and children. In fact, 100% of the worst legislators for children are “pro-life.”

So it shouldn’t come as a surprise when anti-choicers oppose programs that help born people secure shelter. And yet, even I was stunned at this:

An anti-abortion group has broken up a deal between Planned Parenthood and Habitat for Humanity by blasting out 10,000 e-mails to Habitat supporters.

Planned Parenthood is building a 23,000-square-foot regional headquarters on Central Avenue, and planned to sell Habitat the land next door for a token $10 to build three below-market-cost houses. The deal benefited Planned Parenthood because the city required the clinic to put up buildings as a buffer between its parking lot and Cohen Way.

“We could have put up any building we wanted,” said Barbara Zdravecky, president of Planned Parenthood. “We wanted to donate the land so Habitat could build more attainable housing.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »